Senior Lecturer Jim Endersby: Orchid: A Cultural History
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Author: Senior Lecturer Jim Endersby
Number of Pages: 292 pages
Published Date: 04 Jan 2017
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Publication Country: United States
Language: English
ISBN: 9780226376325
Download Link: Click Here
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At once delicate, exotic, and elegant, orchids are beloved for their singular, instantly recognizable beauty. Found in nearly every climate, the many species of orchids have carried symbolic weight in countless cultures over time. The ancient Greeks associated them with fertility and thought that a parent who ingested the orchid root could determine the gender of a child. During the Victorian era, orchids became deeply associated with romance and seduction. And in twentiethcentury hard-boiled detective stories, they transformed into symbols of decadence, secrets, and cunning. What is it about the orchid that has enthralled the imagination for so many centuries? And why do they still provoke so much wonder? To answer, Jim Endersby offers a unique cultural history of this captivating family of plants. Following the stories of orchids throughout history, Endersby divides our attraction to them into four key themes: science, empire, sex, and death. He explore how these have shaped orchids and how orchids, in return, have shaped our own investigations and associations. When it comes to empire, for instance, orchids are a prime example of the exotic riches sought by Europeans as they shaped their plans for colonization. Endersby also reveals how Charles Darwins theory of evolution became intimately entangled with the story of the orchid as he investigated their methods of cross-pollination. As Endersby shows, orchidsperhaps because of their extraordinarily diverse colors, shapes, and sizeshave also bloomed repeatedly in films, novels, plays, and poems, from Shakespeare to science fiction, from hard-boiled thrillers to elaborate modernist novels. Featuring many gorgeous illustrations from the collection of the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew,Orchid: A Cultural History tells, for the first time, the extraordinary story of orchids and our prolific interest in them. It is a tale sure to enchant not only gardeners and plant collectors, but anyone curious about the flowers obsessive hold on the imagination in history, cinema, literature, and more.